President Weah Urges Employment Based on Competence

President George Manneh Weah has called his Cabinet Ministers to employ based on competence and not along party lines.

Speaking on Sunday, March 11, during the 53rd birth anniversary of Mrs. Clar Marie Weah held at the Winners Chapel in the Oldest Congo Town, he said cabinet ministers must employ based on competence and not on party lines since the government aims to bring change.

According to an Executive Mansion press release, President Weah described the First Lady’s birthday as a special day in his life and a blessing especially as they celebrated her natal day in a church.

President Weah admitted while he is not a perfect human being, he do his best to be a people-centered President and assured Liberians that he will prioritize the less fortunate in society and the wayward children known as “Zogos” to become useful citizens.

He noted his wife was able to mentor him during the civil war by challenging him to reach out to Liberians who were languishing in refugee camps across the sub-region by helping to bring relief to their shattered lives.

President Weah said like his grandmother (the late Emma Brown) and mother (the late Anna Monneh Quiawhea), the First Lady is an inspiration to him.

Speaking, Mrs. Weah thanked her husband for the opportunity afforded her to serve the Liberian people and promised to reach out to all in her power, by the grace of the Almighty.

Madam Weah also applauded the people of Liberia for electing her husband and promised to work with him to bring Liberia to its pre-war status.

Earlier, Pastor Chidiebere Mibuko, of Winners’ Chapel cautioned President Weah to be steadfast in administering the affairs of the nation.

Pastor Mibuko challenged President Weah not to be distracted but remain focused because a leader is born that is why he was overwhelmingly elected to make the difference to the well-being of the electorates.

14 COMMENTS

Mr. president, we hear you, but set the example for you ministers to follow. Many of your recent nominees for various offices in your cabinet tell us otherwise. Many of those nominees are flat out incompetent, some with known criminal backgrounds, others once fired from the very places you are sending them, as if you desire confusion and infighting in those places and not productivity. So let the Executive Mansion set the tune for your sermon and others will follow suit.

The rotten-fish-head of the last administration will confirm, from personal experience, that the call to “do as I SAY and not as I DO” is so so talk, like “sounding brass and tinkling cymbal”. If the President wanted his Cabinet Ministers to employ staff based on competence and not along party lines, he himself should have made sure to appoint people based on competence and patriotism. As things now stand (barring a timely reset of some kind) the nation seems to be on course for a continuation of more corruption, ineffective leadership and poor governance.

I m surprise president Weah will say such thing. He’s a complete hypocrite! Doesnt live by what he says…
He’s there appointing even high school graduates into strategic positions and also people who are grossly incompetent for some positions. He should be ashamed to tell his subordinates to employ based on competence!!!

You all need to expose the ones who are incompetent to the PRESIDENT and the NATION. The PRESIDENT needs everyone’s help, PLEASE. May the almighty God, guidance be upon the PRESIDENT, and the PEOPLE of LIBERIA.

“Employment based on competency” depends on how wide the net of the word, connotation. For instance, does it include skills, or experience in the new position, or would just degrees do? And does it factor in our systemic institutional inefficiency; plus the realization that no in-service, or on-the-job training ((OTJ) exists, in most, for assistant managers, assistant controllers, and assistant ministers upward to the apex?

For instance, a political appointee to head the State Department or CIA is going to meet a ‘competent’ bureaucracy, and professionals heading internal divisions who will provide the administrative, operational and analytical knowhow necessary for achieving organizational goals and constitutional mandates. Whereas, our country lacks even an effective Civil Service before one can talk of merit-based recruitment to top positions.

One had expected EJS, with national and international bureaucratic experience, to professionalize our institutions. Understandably, the Iron Lady was unhinged by her own shadows. However, it doesn’t excuse substituting sham loyalty for competency, symbolism for substance, and constant tensions on top of cascading crises for ‘relative peace”. Well, we were all too happy to lick it up like lollipop candy sticks. Anyway, what’s ahead of our nation should same old, same old slide unabated isn’t a joking matter.

This brings me to you alias John Doe; Senator George Manneh Weah did meet the constitutional requirements for the presidency, and no wonder he was elected by the people – go read.

But, probably, he is signaling that the “appointments” are jointly made by the Coalition Parties. Needless to say, including EJS, who must keep her “loyalists” in place to cover-up dysfunctional unaccountable governance which drove incompetency, willful waste, pervasive poverty, and combustible polarization. The tragic irony is that if Weah apes her, the pro-poor program loses steam even before policy prescriptions are outlined and articulated to get it off the ground.

Alias John Doe, President Weah’s story of success made promises to the hungry suffering downtrodden palatable. Notwithstanding, he won’t fulfill them by continuing the bonanza compensations of EJS and by putting square pegs in round holes (picking unprofessional aides), which portends a likely fallout with that base. When that happens, God forbid, detractors would gain upper hand, and things would never be the same, to say the least. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Of course, the appointments are irreversible and most are reportedly popular with the CDC coalition base.
The question is, “Time will tell”- for what?

That, for instance, continuing apportioning a third of annual budget for ludicrous compensations of few while multitudes undergo pervasive poverty, or appointing a Cabinet Minister who hopes that a Special Assistant would do his or her job is change, or wise decision-making? Sorry to differ, many Liberians at home and abroad want President Weah to succeed, and an indifferent “Time will tell” won’t wash with them.

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